EPG systems that provide subscribing television viewers with on-screen program schedule information in a convenient format are well known. Interactive EPGs operate under viewer control permitting the browsing and selecting on-screen of schedule information. Such EPGs may also permit the ordering of pay-per-view programming and perform other useful operations on demand. Some EPG systems co-operate with recording equipment such as VCRs to instruct the recording of programs. An example of an EPG system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,551 by Lett, et al., entitled “Method And Apparatus For Providing Interactive Electronic Programming Guide”.
Typical EPGs function by delivering program schedule information, and sometimes applications and/or systems software, electronically to equipment such as a PC or set-top-box co-located with a viewer's television. The electronic delivery is usually by way of broadcast, cable, direct satellite, wide area network or some other suitable form of transmission. The delivered guide is stored in a memory in the equipment for viewing and reviewing and is periodically updated, whether on demand or automatically. The equipment further comprises a microprocessor and program instruction to provide EPG functionality. The microprocessor is operative with the program to display the schedule on a display device (such as a monitor or the television screen) and to respond to viewer instructions received via an input device such as an IR controller, keyboard or the like.
Viewers desire program schedule information that corresponds to the choice of programming available to them in a particular locale. Viewers may receive television program content from a variety of service providers such as cable or satellite operators and via local broadcasters over-the-air. Of course, content may also be delivered digitally over a network. As such, the programming available to one viewer may differ from that available to another. However programming guides are typically aggregated in a central location from a plurality of data sources for reasons of efficiency. These guides must then be distributed in a manner that is useful to a particular viewer, i.e. tailoring the schedule to the viewer's general programming availability.
It is known to transmit pertinent program schedules to subscribing viewers based upon an identification of the viewer's service provider and/or general geographic location. For example, different solutions are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,760,821 of Ellis et al., entitled “Electronic Program Guide Schedule Localization System and Method” (hereinafter “Ellis”) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,078 of Levine entitled “Method and Apparatus for Receiving Customized Television Programming Information by Transmitting Geographic Location to a Service Provider Through a Wide Area Network” (hereinafter “Levine”). Ellis teaches a system to filter program schedule information at the subscriber end, saving only program data pertinent to a particular subscriber as selected according to a subscriber's service provider and geographic location. Levine teaches a method and system to distribute only pertinent data to a subscriber over a wide-area network. The data is filtered at the EPG service provider end upon receipt of the subscriber's geographic location (e.g. ZIP code) and, if necessary, service provider.
In contrast, it is particularly difficult to identify the specific programming available to a subscribing viewer who receives television programming from over-the-air broadcast sources. A primary service provider (e.g. a cable operator) cannot be used as a convenient programming identifier for the subscribing viewer. In such a case, a geographic indicator such as a postal or ZIP code is a better indicator of the EPG subscriber's available channel line-up (i.e. set of channels receivable by a subscriber). However, due to the relative size of some geographic regions identified by postal code or the geographic and other anomalies in such regions that may affect a subscriber's reception, subscribers having the same postal code may not receive the same programming over-the-air.
In many regions of the United Kingdom, where cable and satellite providers do not have relatively large market penetration and broadcast is the primary source of programming, it is known that viewers in the same postal code region often have very different channel line-ups. Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which is a schematic illustration of two viewers in the same general geographic location that receive different channel line-ups. As shown in FIG. 1, a first viewer at location 58 with a TV antenna 48 receives a broadcast channel 34 (ITV) and a broadcast channel 40 (BBC3). A second viewer at location 60 with TV antenna 48 receives broadcast channel 34 (ITV) and a broadcast channel 48 (BBC3). The first viewer does not receive channel 48 and the second viewer does not receive channel 40. The channel line-up of the first viewer is 34 and 40, and the channel line-up of the second viewer is 34 and 48.
Thus a simple identifier of a geographic region cannot distinguish such EPG subscribing viewers.
Moreover it is costly to determine on an individual basis the line-up of specific over-the-air programming sources for each subscriber in a general geographic area to build a database. A manual survey of each subscriber or potential subscriber to determine programming source availability is impractical. A comprehensive database may be constructed and operated that co-ordinates a geographical position for each channel source. The geographical position of an EPG subscriber may then be compared with the database to determine a channel line-up of nearest channels. However, the construction of such a database, typically from GPS readings, is quite costly, and the operation thereof is slow.
It is advantageous to have a method and system for localizing an electronic program guide schedule particularly where viewers may not be conveniently grouped by service provider and/or general geographic location. An EPG provider may thus provide localized services from a central database economically.